Less than two months ago, real estate agent Biz Dominick received a few phone calls on a home she had listed in Denver. She was ready to make a deal but then found out the callers were looking to rent the property, not buy.

It turned out a scammer had listed the home on Craigslist and was telling respondents to the ad to make a $650 rental deposit into a bank account, said Dominick, who works for Perry & Co.

“We have heard about it, but no one else in the office has had a personal experience with it,” she said about such scams.

Craigslist, New York-based Roomster and other online apartment locator services make finding a rental property easy — and also make it easy for scammers to target the unwary.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said rental scams go on in Denver, especially when people don’t use good reason and common sense and don’t check the accuracy of ads.

“When there is pressure on people, then they are more susceptible to being scammed,” he said.

That pressure in Denver can be attributed to the low inventory of housing for sale and rent. The average vacancy rate in the metro area is 4.9 percent, which is tighter than the average of 6.2 percent since 1990. Apartment List reported Thursday that in May, average rent in the Denver metro area was up 8.3 percent over the previous year. A 2-bedroom apartment averaged $1,320.

However, even in desperate situations, people must be careful, Morrissey said. He urged them to check out each listing.

“You have a lot more control over this situation than you used to,” he said.

Wilson said the BBB can’t disclose the number of open complaints against a company. She said it gives every company the benefit of the doubt until there is a resolution with the customer or until several requests to resolve a complaint go unanswered.

Regardless, real estate agent Dominick said, if a rental seems too good to be true, it probably is.

In her case, she said the scammer who created the ad for her listing must have taken photos from the Multiple Listing Service and used them on Craigslist and other online apartment locator tools.

“I have heard they only use vacant homes because no one will answer the door,” she said.

The home in question was vacant and had a “for sale” sign in the yard.

Dominick said while investigating the bogus Craigslist ad, she found several red flags.

For one, the phone number listed in the ad didn’t work. Also the ad used incorrect grammar and punctuation, she said. E-mails from the scammer, who posed as the homeowner, stated that no one could show the home because they had moved out of town — another warning sign, she said.

The scammer also was saying a renter couldn’t receive the keys until a deposit was made to a specific bank account.

Dominick said this is a reminder not to hand over money without confirmation, even “though it may be tempting because it’s such a good deal.”